Cognitive Linguistics seeks to describe language in terms of humans' general cognitive abilities and mechanisms, rather than a system of (innate) grammar rules. In this view, learning and knowing a language is similar to other things we learn and know: largely a matter of training and experience. A cognitive approach is useful in explaining linguistic phenomena such as polysemy, metaphor, analogy and idioms, but is also applied to aspects of phonology and sentence structure.
In this course we will:
- study the basics of cognition and language;
- learn about recent research in cognitive linguistics;
- discuss what cognitive linguistics has to say about learning and teaching English.
Course book: Ungerer, Friedrich & Hans-Jörg Schmid. 2006. An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics. 2nd ed. Harlow: Pearson Education.
Additional texts will be announced in class. |